It was only two days ago that I found out that costume designer, and nemesis to classic film fans and costume design enthusiasts everywhere, Jean-Pierre Dorleac, died a fortnight or so ago. He was 83 years old, and had no funeral or memorial service, according to his surviving partner.
I will be upfront; Dorleac was one reason I stopped updating this blog as much as I did in the past, alongside other reasons such as the burnout, embarrassment at how badly written the old articles were, and general frustration at how poorly documented costume design is in older productions.
When I first encountered Dorleac (that surname will be phased out as this post goes on...),it was during 2020, when my silly little blog was run by a much younger and much more immature self. I had followed him on Twitter, and at once Dorleac messaged me if 'Do you want to do an interview?'
That was the first warning sign. The second was, when I asked him to confirm how much he designed for sequel series Galactica 1980, he barked at me to remove costume designer Al Lehman's name from my article, and used the chance to insult Lehman and his work.
Anyone who is already familiar with the late Dorleac's online presence knows what an absolute mess it was. The man had boundless energy to get into online arguments, hiss and complain at anything he saw, or just be snappy and confrontational even when asked polite questions. And he was not getting younger.
His Twitter following could be likened to some kind of cult, with hordes of hapless followers taking his word for gospel. And for a while, I was one of them, because Dorleac felt he could use me to spread his lies.
When I set up my costume blog, I was a lot more opinionated and didn't like the 'look' of most modern genre productions. At the age of 31 now, I don't particularly care anymore. But when Dorleac claimed it was because the entire industry was full of hacks who couldn't draw or design, my younger, more catty self latched onto it.
The idea that it was all the work of a corrupt, incompetent industry was scandalous, and even better provided a moral excuse to trash the work of the people behind it. And the guy saying this was a veteran costume designer who did cult classics like Battlestar Galactica! He surely knew what he was talking about!
But even at the time, there was cracks showing. I have always been interested in history, and have always been allergic to bullshit. And the longer I was near him, the more I felt his stories didn't add up.
Perhaps the biggest was, of course, Battlestar Galactica. To me, and everyone else who would listen (or be stupid enough to buy his toilet paper substitute of an autobiography), Dorleac denied that Ralph McQuarrie designed the program, and even worse totally unpersoned Andrew Probert's role, despite that Probert came up with the final Cylon design. Dorleac hissed to me that Probert was 'one of the stuntmen who wore one of the Cylon suits'. This was a lie. Probert never worked in stunts in his entire life.
When I brought up the old Galactica.TV fansite had an article interviewing Haleen Holt, who worked with Dorleac, confirmed it was Probert's, he hissed 'Don't listen to Marcel Damen, he is a total asshole creep'.
Marcel Damen's proof that 'Dorleac' copied Andrew Probert's drawing and Ralph Massey's maquette.
Why the hostility? Perhaps it was because of Marcel Damen's expose on the Colonial Warrior uniform, exposing that Dorleac had copied the design from a panel of Philippe Druillet's Lone Sloane, also preserved on the Wayback Machine, though it did not save the images sadly.
I discovered this when I already had tired of Dorleac's abrasive behaviour but this was what made me realise he was full of shit. He always came out with a story that he 'sold the design to a comic book', never naming the 'comic book'. Because yeah, Philippe Druillet hardly needed help designing a jacket and trousers.
I regularly discussed with a friend at the time how many of his other career stories were full of holes. His supposed work on Barbarella and Bird with the Crystal Plumage, supposedly being shortlisted to work on Nic Roeg's cancelled Flash Gordon, his stories of meeting other costume designers in 'costume workrooms' and 'Oscar dinner parties', the way the dates regularly conflicted or were vague.
I was so frustrated and depressed about realising I had been taken for a ride, that I deleted the lengthy interview I had done with Dorleac on this blog, and quietly removed his name from that tag list of 'notable costume designers'. I don't believe in platforming bullshitters.
In a way, I got lucky, maybe because I got closer to him than most of the fan bloggers who fell afoul of his bad temper. I regularly talked with him on direct messages in Twitter, foolishly asking him the ins and outs of costuming, other designers and just was barraged with vague answers, half-truths and lies. I fell for, and unfortunately repeated, his lies about various costume designers, and I guess he liked that.
This is a guy who, aside from his fierce hatred of Marcel Damen, also regularly harassed fan blogs such as Filmsketchr or Frockflicks, outright sending them angry emails to 'correct' them with his lies and gossip, and regularly snipe or insult them in public or in private.
Perhaps, because I had got so close, and been privy to so many of his lies and insults about other designers, directors, bloggers, etc, he was wary of crossing me? Or maybe he didn't care, because my stupid interview with him had, as he proudly told me, gotten a rise of purchases of his crappy autobiography.
In the years since I quietly cut ties, I had more or less forgotten about him outside of being a personal cautionary tale of letting ex-industry guys get parasocial - something I remembered when I pivoted to another blogging project about a different flavour of movie magic.
And then, on a whim, I searched his name and found out he had died. And then, I found a Substack blog article written by film critic Farran Smith Nehme, 'The Man Who Would Be Dorleac'.
To call this article eye-opening would be an understatement; I have to truly commend Nehme for putting in the effort to document the truth of Jean-Pierre Dorleac, or as I shall refer to him from now on, Jerry Paine.
Nehme's article was not just damning for exposing the true origins of Jerry Paine (confirming my suspicions that his early career credits were fake) but also for proving Paine was a pathological liar right from the start.
The man's entire life and persona was fake. While I knew he was lying about his career, I did not expect it to be that much of a web of lies. A military brat roleplaying as a delicate Old Hollywood gay queen.
(According to Nehme when we discussed this in private messages, Jerry Paine claimed he had affairs with actresses? Yet in private to me - and thirsty posts he made on Twitter when I first saw him around - he said he was gay? I could see Jerry Paine being a very messy bisexual man, but we'll get to that later.)
In the newspaper clippings Nehme uncovered, one of the earliest mentions Jerry Paine makes of Edith Head is that 'we met on set and had lunch a few times'. Even this relatively minor interaction, I call bullshit on, as Paine in the same interview claims Edith Head praised him on a television show she never appeared on.
Just like his first interaction with me - where he said Al Lehman was miscredited on Galactica 1980 'thanks to a union fuckup' - he starts with a small lie, to get to a bigger lie. The bigger lie, in that same first conversation, was that the reboot Battlestar Galactica's costume designer only got the gig cos she was married to Ronald D. Moore and that they phoned him to 'copy' the Cylon design 'he created'. Sure.
Jerry Paine was such a monumental liar, a fabricator of tall tales and slanderous libel, that I am going to flat out debunk his list of fake credits on here, that he has spread to so, so many hapless interviewers.
Jerry Paine never was mentored by, praised by, or ever interacted with Edith Head.
Jerry Paine never attended any universities.
Jerry Paine never was related to Catherine Deneuve or Francoise Dorleac.
Jerry Paine never worked on Barbarella.
Jerry Paine never was a couture designer in any country.
Jerry Paine never contributed to The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.
Jerry Paine never worked on the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Marat/Sade.
Jerry Paine never worked on any Broadway production.
Jerry Paine never 'submitted designs' to any comic books.
Jerry Paine never designed the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica.
Jerry Paine never 'invented' spandex pants.
Jerry Paine never was assigned to Nicholas Roeg's aborted Flash Gordon.*
Jerry Paine never was assigned to Blade Runner.
Jerry Paine never worked with Michael Jackson.**
Jerry Paine never was asked to (and thus 'turned down') work on any Star Trek series.
Jerry Paine never was asked to work on other scifi shows like Space: Above & Beyond
Jerry Paine never was assigned to a cancelled adaptation of Interview with the Vampire.
Jerry Paine never attended any 'Oscar dinner parties'.
Jerry Paine never met Anthony Powell, James Acheson, Jenny Beavan, or any other notable film costume designers.
Jerry Paine never went to court against George Lucas in his lawsuit against Battlestar Galactica
Jerry Paine never was friends with or knew Alfred Hitchcock, and so on.
And that's not even considering that he finally succeeded in getting a bigger platform to spread his slander about actors and actresses, going to none other than notorious rightwing rag The Daily Mail, spreading his lies that Patrick Macnee sexually harassed him (Macnee wasn't even gay or bi).
The man single handedly polluted film history, banking on the fact that costume design is not as slavishly documented as special effects, and using his age as a shield for when the dates don't add up.
*(There are supposed Flash Gordon costume drawings by Jerry Paine that were auctioned off a few years ago, but these are absolutely a forgery in my opinion. Disgraced industry menace Sandy Collora keeps making fake drawings to prove he designed the aliens for The Abyss and Predator 2!)
**(Paine was dragged by Jackson's fans for claiming he didnt work with him for noticing he was a creep. While Paine was clearly just saying this for clout, Jackson was certainly a pedophile. Sorry Wacko Jacko cultists.)
The nearest to a truthful account (though it repeats his lies about his ancestry) is his IMDB page, and it ain't a pretty sight. Paine has a good start on Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and (his most respectable credit) Somewhere in Time, and then spends the 1980s and 1990s working on utter dreck.
Tales of the Golden Monkey. The mediocre TV adaptation of Valley of the Dolls. Forgettable cheap soap operas like Emerald Point NAS. Automan. Airwolf. Knight Rider. Manimal. The Greatest American Hero. Jake and the Fatman. A 1997 TV movie reboot of Leave it To Beaver. The Road Raiders. Tequila & Bonetti?!
Freaked is better than anything in Jerry Paine's resume.
It's no wonder Jerry Paine had such a strange relationship to Quantum Leap, in particular Dean Stockwell's costumes. A constant reminder that it was the one thing that very briefly saved his dead in the water costuming career, before it then died for good a decade later. He was simply not a successful costume designer.
It actually makes Paine's regular hissy fits about the state of filmmaking, fashion, and especially costume design, all the more revealing. Paine regularly claimed that every other living costume designer around was, by and large, a 'hack', or a 'slut', or 'a producer's wife', or 'a jumped-up Home Economics teacher'.
Yet Paine's entire career was full of the sins he lambasted other costume designers for; ignorance on doing historical costuming well; taking credit for other artist's work; lying to get a career; being an amateur with no proper training; treating costume design like a fashion show; relying on bought and vintage clothing.
Paine boasted about his work for Quantum Leap's 'historical' costuming, but that show is not a good benchmark for historical costume design at all. Generally the show's then-recent settings meant that the costumes were bought, vintage, or wardrobe hires, yet Paine cooed that he 'made hundreds' of costumes.
Paine's few forays in historical costuming, past Somewhere in Time, aren't much to write home about. The few costumes he made for The Bastard and The Rebels are quite poor quality, as are the dresses he made for the insipid 1982 Mae West biopic. He seemingly had no access to more high-quality tailors, cutters or even fabrics for these productions, and rarely utilised the services of costume houses like Western Costume Company.
I wonder why he rarely went to costumiers or freelance tailors to make his costumes. Did he not want to be shown up by seasoned professionals? Was he that much of a control freak? Was he wary that his phoney credentials would be easily rumbled by seasoned costumers? Was it all of the above?
Paine's costumes for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century were indeed made at Western Costume. Considering his prickly character, no doubt he immediately was made persona non grata at Western Costume. This IS a guy who publicly boasted that he once put horse hair into an actresses costume to 'punish her for being a horrid virago'. What person would think such a story is endearing in any way? What even was this man?
Paine's military background - both his father's service, and Paine's own stint in the Air Force - does explain what a bizarrely contradictory person he was. In some ways, Paine was an older generation's equivalent to the 'softboy' archetype - a nasty, abusive man who pretends he is more sensitive and cultured than he actually is.
Under the cultivated veneer of Old Hollywood prissiness was a boorish military brat who hated women, was cagey on his own gayness and so demonised other gay men as sex criminals, was nasty about people's bodies, and had no real appreciation for art outside of his shallow love for glitz and glamour.
It could explain why Paine detested almost anything associated with, what you would call in his day, 'monster kids'. He despised science-fiction, fantasy and horror, and similarly hated comic books and animation. Was this why he resented the Emmy for Battlestar Galactica, for having to work next to, in his mind, smelly nerds?
We may never know, really. I am not a psychiatrist, but Paine's behaviour reeks of narcissism, and with how much of a liar and bully he was, a touch of sociopathy. Plenty of benign people have bitter feelings from their industry experience, but they don't try to set up cults of personality on Twitter to harass everyone they see.
Paine is not the only industry has-been who weaponised an online following with a 'telling it like it is' guru routine about The Good Old Days before the hacks and pinkos ruined everything. The infamous John Kricfalusi did the same for animation circles, as did hacky fanboy 'director' Sandy Collora for creature effects circles.
While both Kricfalusi and Collora were exposed when alive - after harming people for real, unfortunately - it wasn't until his death that the truth would come out about Paine. And, for what it's worth, Paine's crap stayed in the realm of namecalling and slander, not sexual predation or physical endangerment.
(John Kricfalusi's foul reputation is known to any animation fan but Wikipedia is there for the unfamiliar. Sandy Collora's nonsense was chronicled in an expose archived here. Jerry Paine's behaviour was a combination of Kricfalusi's 'Good Old Days' guru spiel and Collora's fabricated career history. Looking back, Paine's railing against the Costume Designer's Guild echoes Kricfalusi's hatred of Cal Arts, and Paine's entirely made-up friendship and obsession with Edith Head echoes Collora's similar attitude towards Stan Winston).
At least by now, Jerry Paine can no longer contaminate film history any more. Outside of a few interviews (I wonder how many will be taken down...?), Daily Mail columns and any remaining copies of The Naked Truth (no doubt soon to all end up in landfills), his lies are lost to time and can do no more harm.
All copies heading to a paper shredder, dustbin or bonfire near you!
There is one little coda I have to add; this article's name. It is a joke on Philippe Mora's film depicting the case of 'the Brownout Strangler' aka serial killer Eddie Leonski, played in the film by Reb Brown.
Leonski was in the US Army, was already a self-contradictory crybaby and attention-seeking trouble who caused scenes in bars, and killed women because he 'wanted their lovely voices'. The ex-military background, vicious misogyny and self-contradictions of Paine reminded me of Mora's semi-fictionalised Leonski.
It may be in poor taste to compare Jerry Paine to a serial killer but this is a guy who said worse when actors or rival costume designers died. When Allen Garfield passed away, the first thing Paine said was infantile insults about how Garfield 'was so fat he defecated and farted everywhere and broke every sofa he sat on'.
When Val Kilmer passed away, he was jeering in delight. And even years after Al Lehman had passed away, he said 'He was the worst costume designer who ever lived. His work was a joke, his ideas were a joke, his designing process was a joke. Thank god he is not around to give costume designers a bad name'.
So, don't get up in arms about me making a comparison to a serial killer, especially given Paine's history of chronic lying and aggressive behavior is in line with that personality type. And after all, Paine ardently defended child molester Stephen Collins. Yet again, with viciously misogynistic language.
But there is a costuming note I do want to end this on. The costume design of Death of a Soldier was done by Alexandra Tynan, who for a while went by the screen name of Sandra Reid.
Tynan, like Paine, also worked on a cult science-fiction series with robotic villains; Doctor Who. She was responsible for designing the Cybermen in their first two appearances.
Unlike Jerry Paine, Tynan actually did design the Cybermen on paper herself, and again unlike Jerry Paine, she never swiped credits, giving all credit to the Cybermen 'hard parts' to freelance propmaker Jack Lovell. And unlike Paine's jealousy at the rebooted Battlestar Galactica 'copying my designs', Tynan was impressed with Millennium FX's updated versions of her Cybermen costumes for their showdown with Peter Capaldi.
There's more Alexandra Tynans out there then there are Jerry Paines, and that's a fact to take comfort in.
- With direct thanks to Farran Smith Nehme aka @selfstyledsiren, and indirect thanks to Marcel Damen of (the sadly offline) Galactica.TV, both of whom exposed the naked truth of Jerry Paine aka Jean-Pierre Dorleac.
